High court seems to favor Monsanto over Indiana farmer

6:25 PM,
Feb. 19, 2013

Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer, accompanied by his attorney Mark Walters, speaks with reporters outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013, after justices heard oral arguments between Bowman and high-tech agriculture company Monsanto Co. that produces genetically engineered and patented seeds. The case considers whether Bowman violated Monsanto's patents when he planted an unmarked mix of soybeans that he bought from a grain elevator and that is often used for feed.

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When Knox County farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman started using grain elevator soybeans to plant a winter crop, he never expected to wind up where he sat Tuesday: in the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices debated whether he broke patent laws.

But while he more than got his day in court, there was one problem.

"I couldn't hear," Bowman, 75, said afterward. "I didn't know what the questions were, so I just well not have been here." ...